Chinese New Year A Chinese Blessing:
"Si Ji Ping An"
May you be blessed with Peace and Safety in all four seasons.
Happy New Year and a Prosperous Year of the DOG!
Chinese New Year is the main holiday of the year for more than one quarter of the world's population. Although the People's Republic of China uses the Gregorian calendar for civil purposes, a special Chinese calendar is used for determining festivals. Various Chinese communities around the world also use this calendar.
It is celebrated in late January to early February (depending on the year - Chinese New Year starts on a New Moon and ends with the lantern festival on the full moon 15 days later).
"For thousands of years, the Chinese have celebrated a new year as a spring celebration. Chinese New Year is still sometimes called Spring Festival. It is held after the fall harvest and before the start of the spring planting season and brings hopes for a good harvest in the year to come.
The Chinese use a calendar based on the phases of the moon. A new moon is the beginning of a month. A full moon is the middle of a month. This is called a lunar calendar, and it is calculated by the time it takes the moon to travel around the earth. (By comparison, the Gregorian calendar which we use is based on the time it takes the earth to circle the sun). Chinese New Year is the first day of the first month of the Chinese calendar. Each year the holiday falls sometime between January 21st and February 19th.
Long ago there was a Chinese legend that said that a terrible monster or giant lived in the mountains and would come down at the end of the year and terrorize people and animals or even kill them all. It was discovered that the monster was frightened by loud noises, bright lights, and the colour red. This is one of the reasons that the Chinese New Year has many loud firecrackers, bright fireworks and lanterns, and the colour red is seen everywhere.
The Chinese New Year is sometimes just celebrated on the actual new year's day--or preparations for the holiday might be made for weeks before and the celebration might extend for many days after the actual new year's day.
It ends with the Golden Dragon Parade."
| Year of the Dog | January 29, 2006 |
| Year of the Pig | February 18, 2007 |
| Year of the Rat | February 7, 2008 |
| Year of the Ox | January 26, 2009 |
 |  |  |